The Cake is a Lie (13 page)

I gave Brandon a specific look, a
slight stare, to signal there was something I was thinking that he
should be too. I was thinking about one of our favorite American
Pie scenes, where Stifler had to touch Jim’s dick in order to see
two girls touch each other’s breasts. Brandon got the message, he
knew what I was thinking.

“
I’m down, game
on.”

“
Ohhh shit, ohhh shit.” I
got up and began pacing the room, as if I was in deep conflicted
thought. Everyone was laughing and giggling.

“
Alright, it’s just like a
Band Aid,” I announced, before pulling a chair over to face
Brandon.

Brandon stared into my eyes, “You look
so good today,” He said, we all cracked up.

“
Is this a good time to tell
you how pretty I always thought your eyes are, Brandon?”

We inched our faces closer and closer a
few times, our hands on our shoulders, slightly pulling each other
in. Each time we got close we broke away laughing. Every time I was
sure I was going to do it, but I just couldn’t.

It was much harder than I thought it
would be. I could smell his odor, his unique Brandon smell. On one
of the attempts our lips finally made contact. I could taste his
oily skin around his lips. His lips were are dry and chapped at
first but I could feel them start to get wet. We paused, stuck in
our entry position. We didn’t move our heads or put any effort into
it besides the bare necessity. Brandon opened his mouth wider and I
slowly felt my tongue into his mouth until I ran into a wiggling
sand papery sensation brush against the tip of my tongue. On reflex
I pulled out, running away across the room and out onto the deck.
Everyone was laughing.

“
Alright your turn.” I
shouted as I jogged back triumphantly into the living
room.

When Oakley and Elle made out they did
it much more passionately. I was the anchor of chillness amongst
all the full blown giddiness. Jonsen had been getting domed up for
years.

Afterward, the game ended. There was
nowhere to go after that. Real life isn’t like the movies. We
continued to talk and Brian showed up eventually.

I watched as Benny slowly moved from
his chair to the couch with the girls. With every burst of laughter
he kept scooting closer and closer to Oakley. Eventually, he just
reached out and took her hand. They didn’t even look at each other,
she just let him take her hand. Brandon and I glanced at each other
confused. Oakley temporarily resumed the game for one turn and
dared Brian to make out with Elle. God Elle was hideous. Her bobbed
blond hair was her only distinguishable girl feature. It was hard
to look at her, no way in a million years would I kiss her. I
wasn’t going to lead her on, my parents raised me better than
that.

Elle and Brian stood up and walked to
meet each other. I had no idea Brian was that desperate, I mused,
he must be even shyer than I thought. She raised her head and
sweetly and gently they stuck their tongues into each other’s
mouths. Elle must feel so lucky right now, I thought, Oakley just
made Elle’s life.

Then, shockingly, Benny stood up and
gently pulled Oakley up off the couch by her hand. Pulling her hand
behind him he led her down the hallway. Brandon and I were
stupefied. They weren’t even kissing first, what the shit? I waited
patiently until I heard a door close, then I bolted down the
hallway to investigate. Brandon followed. We could see the bathroom
light beneath the door. We tip toed over and put our ears against
the wood.

“
Benny, please don’t,” We
heard Oakley plead from inside.

And then the crime of the century took
place. Benny fucking Reed touched Oakley Carter as close as you can
touch her. Today, if Benny focuses hard enough, he can still
probably remember something about that moment. Some reminiscence of
a memory, something is there. Like how I can remember the cold wood
of that bathroom door on my cheek, the timber smell. For all we
know, we only have one life, all of us, one shot, and in this life
Benny Reed felt inside Oakley Carter. Benny’s living proof of the
riches that reaching over and grabbing a girl’s hand can bring. You
can talk and joke, but telling a thousand jokes isn’t worth the
slightest brush of a hand. Plus, it’s so easy Benny Reed can do it.
To the victor goes the spoils. Might is right. Etcetera, whatever.
[8]

Brandon and I listened to Oakley’s
familiar moans through the door, she only let him do it for a few
moments before stopping him. That was our cue to get out of there.
When we got back to the living room we found Elle sitting across
Brian’s lap, staring into his dark brown eyes, just straight
enamored hard. Brandon and I look at each other grinning. The quiet
shy people found love, how fitting.

“
Well no one saw that
coming, go Brian,” Brandon blurted out.

“
I def didn’t.” We stood
there commenting and joking loudly towards the love birds until
Brian and Elle started laughing and were forced to look at
us.

“
I can’t believe we made
out,” Brandon reminded everyone.

“
It just felt so right,” I
confessed with a grin.

A minute later Benny and Oakley came
out of the bathroom and the girls left shortly after that. The next
day Elle told her parents everything that happened and Oakley got
in a lot of trouble. I didn’t see her for the rest of the summer.
[9]

[8]
Benny
actually grew up to be a genuinely great, hardworking, smart,
successful guy. I’d be friends with him.

[9]
A
year
later, right before sophomore year, I was getting my haircut when a
goddess walked into Shoreline’s most popular hair salon. It was
Elle. Stunned, I denied that it was her again and again. Her hair
was long and highlighted, her braces were gone revealing flawless
white teeth and she’d grown huge boobs. I didn’t think a
transformation like that was possible. That year she went on to
become one of the cutest and most popular girls in our grade. And
she always kept her amazing, sweet, down to earth personality.
Because of where she’d come from.

Two weeks before our
freshmen year at Shorewood high, Brandon casually mentioned to me
he was being sent off to his dad’s for high school. He was leaving
in a few days. Brandon’s mom, Kerry, was cool too, a buddy mom–you
had to really mess up for her to send her precious beautiful boy
off to live with her abusive, alcoholic ex-husband. But the more
leeway she gave Brandon the more he pushed it. He barely hid the
fact he was smoking weed. Kerry would come home and take one look
at our glazed over faces and know what was up. But for the longest
time she’d just roll her eyes and keep the peace. But the laisse
fare attitude ended when Brandon finished 8
^th
grade with a 1.2
GPA.

Losing Brandon wasn’t as bad as when I
lost Jonsen. I partied now. It was far from ideal, but it was gonna
be ok.

Before high school, Loren had told me
very seriously that the most important thing you had to do on the
first day was pick your drug dealer. He compellingly illustrated
this whole social hierarchy at Shorewood that revolved around which
senior drug dealer you chose. There was the class president, he was
really a drug dealing king pin. Then there was the beautiful head
of the Christian club, also a drug dealer. I believed him so whole
heartedly that during our freshmen orientation tour I asked our
senior guide if he was a drug dealer.

He laughed and said “No.” A likely
answer, but I knew what was really going on.

“
So, who’re the best drug
dealers?” He laughed again.

“
Look, I’m not a drug
dealer, but if you’re looking for weed I can get you some.” He gave
me his number.

No, Shorewood wasn’t like
Loren said, it was just like 7
^th
grade again. Staring at
Loren, Janae and the sophomore’s out of the corner of my eye for a
split second while I walked by them. Their group hung out on this
obscurely placed handicap walkway railing in the center square of
school. Every morning I would want nothing more than to sit on that
railing with them and listen to what they were talking
about.

Jonsen was a true sight to behold
freshmen year. He was the only freshman on the varsity soccer team.
Everyone showed him respect, he could have hung out with any group
in the entire school. He dated senior cheerleaders. There were
still stories, our hottest freshmen girl, Tiana Rola, was one of
those girls who was either talking enthusiastically about Jesus and
her virginity, or pot and masturbating. She swallowed Jonsen’s goo
in the boys bathroom stall before being sent away a few weeks
later.

I had a much different freshmen year
from Jonsen. I mean most of the freshmen class knew me as a budding
socialite, so that was something. But Loren and the sophomores
still didn’t know I existed. Loren, Janae, Mia, Jonsen. They were
the goal.

20. Ian Kinney (Winter,
2003
)

Like King Arthurs court we were all
standing in a circle in Ian’s brother’s room. At the feet of the
group was two brand new half gallons, still bagged up. One of the
co-leaders of the skater clique was there, Jon, he was always
wearing a different black shirt and a black baseball hat that his
shag poured out of. Girls thought Jon was a looker. His homie Jeff
was in the skater clique too, but he was also in the “I don’t give
a fuck about anything clique,” party of one. He had a black beanie
pulled down to his eyes and his black baggy sweatshirt had holes
cut in the sleeves for his thumbs. Justyn used to be a skater but
he was wearing whatever he wanted because was half black and had
sic cornrows. The fact that he had muscles was just icing on the
cake. Justyn had tough eyes, a fidgety mouth, and a disposition for
honest expression. The rest of the skaters in the room were all
wearing flannels or whatever.

I was definitely the swan of the group,
my bright white, partially zipped down jacket had “ITALIA” written
across the front in huge, bright colorful letters. I’d got it from
my uncle for Christmas and decided it definitely stood out, but in
a good way. Now, standing in everyone’s presence, I felt really
self-conscious about it. I wanted to take it off but the T-shirt I
was wearing under it made me look fat, I just liked wearing it
under jackets because it had a great collar.

The stout blond kid standing at the
head of the circle is my in with this whole crew. Ian Kinney has a
tough stocky face but with a narrow, snooty nose holding up his
glasses. I originally knew him from the neighborhood, Jonsen and
Ian’s dads had been friends and firefighters together before Ian’s
dad died. But Ian had gone to a private middle school, and when he
transferred to Shorewood he’d started hanging with the one
testosterone gushing freshmen group I was still intimated by, the
skater clique.

To my surprise, befriending Ian turned
out to be easy. I caught him by himself walking in the hallway a
week or two in the year. “Hey Ian, Jonsen’s quitting weed for
soccer. I need a new connect, you know anybody?”

“
My brother sells now man,
only to certain people, but I’m sure you’re fine. Come over and
he’ll hook you up.”

“
Hey Caldirolis,” Justyn
brought me back to the moment. He was the only person that called
me by my last name, he liked purposefully mispronouncing it
Caldirolis. It annoyed me at first but it’d grown on me. It was
pretty funny.

“
You close to taking over
the world yet?” This was the other thing Justyn always said to me
when we hung out. It all started in our 8th grade social studies
class. I was always sassy to a history teacher but one day our
teacher said some grey statements about the Cuban revolution like
they were stone cold facts and I just went off. “Ya, Fidel’s a
dictator. But at least he’s a benevolent dictator. Batista was a
tyrant and a gangster. He was literally selling the whole country
to gangsters.” The teacher told me to step outside and take a
break.

Ever since Justyn had been making jokes
to me like, “So Caldirolis, when you’re president can I be your
vice president?” Justyn wasn’t the first, I’d been getting the same
jokes since grade school. “When are you going to take over the
world Marco?” It had peaked when “Pinky and the Brain” was on TV,
“What do you want to do tonight, Marco?” I always shied away from
responding, not wanting to come off as arrogant. But in my head I’d
always think “Ya, I’m gonna take over the world, just you
wait.”

“
Soo are you chatty Cathie’s
just gonna talk about your periods all day or are we gonna go time
traveling?” I addressed the group in Ian’s brother’s room. I’d
overheard my brother and his friends, in hysterics, call getting
wasted time traveling.

“
Time traveling?” Jon
repeated as if I was retarded. Introducing new phrases was never
easy.

“
You know getting wasted –
speeding up time – time traveling.”

No one laughed.

I’d waited six agonizingly painful
hours for these half gallons and now we weren’t drinking them. The
problem was that Jon and Justyn couldn’t drink together so the
alcohol had to be divided up so their groups could go their
separate ways. Jon and Justyn were once best friends who had
somehow become mortal enemies. It’d started in 8th grade over a
girl they were both best friends with, Amber. She was muy bonita.
Justyn started talking a bunch of shit, telling Jon to back off,
and Jon responded by calling Justyn “emo,” the ultimate skater
diss. It all added up to the most anticipated fight of the year.
Ex-best-friends-for-life fighting over a girl. They met in the
middle of Richmond Beach Park, Justyn won the fight by a submission
move he learned on the wrestling team, but it was close. More
importantly, neither one got Amber. And they never got over it, no
matter how much I expected, and wanted them to be best friends
again. The skater clique had been the strongest when they were
together. The days when they wouldn’t even talk to you unless you
were wearing Emericas.